


The Origin of Species

by lit_chick08



Series: In the Beginning [1]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Origins, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 20:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1701722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs. S says everyone has a talent.  At least that’s what she says when Felix paints a mural on their bedroom walls.  She’ll find hers, Mrs. S says, before buying Felix more paint, more brushes, more canvases.</p><p>It isn’t Sarah’s fault her talent happens to be for trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Origin of Species

She lives in a lot of different places with a lot of different people. Some of them are okay; most of them are not. There are always other kids with fast fists, and she learns to be faster. Then she learns to hit first. And then she gets sent along to another house, another foster parent, another temporary situation.

One day a man stops her when she walks home from school and offers to take her some place new, some place safe.

“Don’t go with strangers,” that’s what the foster parents always say, but they’re just as much strangers as the people they warn her off of so she goes. She climbs right into his backseat, eats some of the biscuits he offers, and asks him to turn up the radio.

She is eight-years-old the day she makes the choice that changes her life.

* * *

They drive a long time, leaving the city for the country, and she knows she should be scared but she isn’t. It’s the beauty of always living with strangers; you don’t get scared of them anymore. Eventually he pulls down a gravel road that leads them to a cottage, a handful of children playing in the yard, a few women hanging laundry and looking at their arrival. One of the women breaks away.

She’s tall, her long, dark hair woven into a loose braid that hands down her back. She embraces the man who brought her here and then squats to be eye level with her. “And who might you be, love?”

She lifts her chin, crosses her arms over her chest. “Sarah Manning.”

The woman smiles. “Hello, Sarah. I’m Siobhan.”

* * *

Her bed is in the attic, another small twin bed wedged against the other wall. There are posters on the walls for bands the last foster people wouldn’t let Sarah listen to and she is examining them when someone shouts, “Oy!”

Sarah whirls around to see a gangly boy with big lips approaching. He wears the most ridiculous outfit she’s ever seen and his nails are painted a bright pink. Recognizing the look on his face, she snaps, “I wasn’t touching your stuff!”

“Oh.” He adjusts his stance, extending his hand as if she is to kiss it. “I’m Felix, Felix Dawkins. Mrs. S has had me the longest.”

“Sarah Manning.”

Felix looks her over with a critical eye. “Well, Sarah Manning, you look a bloody fright. We have some work to do.”

She doesn’t want to like Felix. It doesn’t make sense to get to like people she’s just going to have to leave.

But Felix makes it impossible to ignore him and even more impossible to dislike him.

* * *

Mrs. S says everyone has a talent. At least that’s what she says when Felix paints a mural on their bedroom walls. She’ll find hers, Mrs. S says, before buying Felix more paint, more brushes, more canvases.

It isn’t Sarah’s fault her talent happens to be for trouble.

She’s good at shoplifting, at fighting, at outrunning the cops, at lying and getting what she wants. Her talents run towards the criminal, and Mrs. S sure as hell doesn’t approve of that.

It’s why she packs them up, takes them to Canada. She says it’ll give them all a fresh start, but Sarah knows the real reason is because the police have brought her home for the third time in six weeks and her boyfriend has a spike in his labret.

Sarah doesn’t have any real affinity for England, so she isn’t upset. She gets on the plane with Mrs. S and Felix, who complains about sitting in the middle of the aisle, and bids farewell to the country full of people who never wanted her.

* * *

Relocating doesn’t make things better or easier, at least not for Sarah. Her talents are still the same, but Mrs. S’s patience is starting to fray. When Sarah finally gets expelled in tenth grade, Mrs. S starts talking about boarding schools and reform schools.

“What will it take for you to stop wasting all your damn potential?!” Mrs. S bellows during the fight, Sarah dodging the tea towel her guardian whips at her as Felix watches wide eyed from his perch on the counter.

“Maybe I haven’t got any potential, Siobhan! Maybe this is all I am!”

“It’s all you are because it’s all you try to be! Is this what you want, Sarah, to be an uneducated criminal? To spend your best days locked up – “

“Oh, for Christ’s sake – “

“Don’t you bloody interrupt me, Sarah Manning, so help me!” Mrs. S stalks towards her, fury and disappointment lighting up her face. “You could do anything you wanted in the world, Sarah, and you’re throwing it all away.”

Sarah raises her chin, choking back the emotion rising in her throat. “Guess you should have picked a better orphan to play mum to.”

Mrs. S recoils as if slapped, Felix gasps her name, and Sarah knows she’s gone too far this time, crossed the invisible line she’s never dared cross before. Her foster mother turns, composes herself, and calmly orders her out of the house.

She is sixteen.

* * *

If the loser friends Mrs. S hates so bad are good for anything, it’s a place to crash. Sarah spends the next few months sleeping on sunken couches and stained mattresses, and if there are moments she wants to go home and ask Siobhan for a place to stay again, they quickly dissipate. Her fatal flaw has always been pride, and Sarah knows she and Mrs. S are alike that way. Neither of them will be the first to break, and Sarah thinks it’s stupid sometimes when she’s showering beneath the cold spray of campground showers.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Felix tells her one afternoon when they meet for lunch. He pays because she’s broke again, the cash she’d managed to swipe from someone’s wallet spent on food for the past two days. 

She doesn’t even stop shoveling food into her mouth to flip him off.

“I’m serious, Sarah,” he continues, picking at a croissant. “What are you going to do, live like a bag lady for the rest of your life, hopping for loser to loser because you’re too dumb to apologize?”

“’Course not.” She smirks around a mouthful of sandwich. “You’ll get a place eventually.”

“Sarah,” he sighs, suddenly sounding so weary, and it breaks her heart to know she’s doing this to him.

Sarah pulls her chair around the table, flinging an arm around his shoulders and squeezing him tightly. “Don’t worry about me, Fee. I’m like a cat, yeah? I always land on my feet.”

* * *

Lifting wallets and stealing from convenience stores only lasts for so long before Sarah realizes she needs to find a more steady income. She considers getting a real job, but with no high school diploma and no permanent address, she has little chance of getting hired doing anything.

“You could always turn tricks,” Felix suggests, and he’s lucky Sarah loves him so much or else she’d have blackened both his eyes.

Con jobs are easy money. Her marks are almost always nerdy guys who are so happy a girl is talking to them, they don’t even consider why it’s a bad idea to give a stranger their PIN number or access to their belongings. She empties bank accounts, she pawns jewelry; she even sells a mint condition Mustang once while her mark is away for the weekend and she’s dog sitting, but the money never lasts. It’s expensive, being a wandering criminal.

Cal Morrison will change that.

It’s happenstance she even crosses paths with him. She’s waiting out a storm in some coffee shop, soaked to the bone and miserable, when someone holds a cup of overpriced coffee in front of her face and says, “You look like you could use this.”

She’s prepared to tell the stranger off when she gets a look at the man. Tall, dark, and handsome with a smile that promises the best sort of sleepless night, Sarah accepts the cup and says, “Thanks.”

It takes ninety minutes from the start of their exchange for Sarah to fuck him in his truck, the rain pounding against the roof of the cab, Cal’s beard roughly scratching against her throat. She comes once, twice, pulls him hair, and when he kisses her like she’s more than just some girl fucking him in an alley, she agrees to go with him to his house.

She is twenty-years-old.

* * *

His house reminds her of Siobhan’s place in England; it has the same warm, cozy feel to it. Cal makes her breakfast for dinner, and as they clean up, he puts her on the counter, goes down on her while she grabs at the cabinets to keep her grounded. In the morning when she wakes up in his arms, he doesn’t hurry her out the door; instead he makes coffee and then they take a shower.

“You got anywhere you need to be?” he asks her as she towels her hair.

Sarah shakes her head. “No.”

Cal hooks an arm around her, pulls her to his chest and kisses her shoulder. “Good.”

He’s an open book, her coffee shop pick-up, and when he tells her about his company, about his partners selling it to the government and settling here, and Sarah knows she could build a whole new life with Cal Morrison’s money. She _will_ build a whole new life with Cal Morrison’s money.

But this is the first time Sarah feels bad about it.

* * *

“What are your secrets, Sarah Manning?” 

Sarah cards her fingers through Cal’s hair, his head resting atop her bare stomach. She thinks about the secrets she could offer him: that she was afraid to ever call Mrs. S “mum” for fear she’d tell Sarah to stop, that she studies her face in the mirror and wonders if she looks like her mum or dad, that sometimes she gets high and thinks about throwing herself in front of a train because she’s such a bloody disappointment but only the thought of Felix keeps her from doing it.

Sarah is filled to the brim with secrets, but none of them are for Cal Morrison.

“I like you,” she murmurs, offering him the closest thing to the truth she can.

“I like you too.” He kisses her navel. “Buying you that cup of coffee is the best choice I ever made.”

She could retire to the Caribbean with Felix with what’s in Cal’s bank accounts. There’d be a cabana and drinks with umbrellas and never again would she have to eat a Cup of Noodles.

Instead she takes $10,000, hitchhikes back to town, and cries herself to sleep for the next two weeks.

* * *

She takes the test in the bathroom of a fast food joint, tearing it open with her teeth and watching the clock on her cell phone. When the pink plus sign appears, she starts to cry, chanting, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

When Felix comes for her, she’s still sitting in that stall, the test clutched so tightly in her hand, Felix has to peel her fingers off of it.

“Well, shite,” he says, sitting beside her on the disgusting floor and pulling her into a hug. 

“I can’t get rid of it, Fee. I can’t be like her.”

She doesn’t have to expound on who the “her” is. Like all foster kids who didn’t remember their parents, the mythical her was always her birth mum.

“Then I guess we’re going to have a baby. Thank god it will have me to show it how to dress.”

Sarah laughs through her tears, clinging to Felix as her entire world changes.

* * *

Mrs. S says nothing when Felix brings her to the door, and she says nothing still when Felix shares her news, his hand squeezing Sarah’s shoulder to remind her not to say anything. After a moment she walks to the stove, pours herself a cup of tea from the kettle.

“We’d best get a cradle then,” she finally says, wrapping her hands around her mug as if to warm them, “and get you to a clinic for a check-up.”

Sarah sleeps in her own bed that night for the first time in almost five years, the familiar scent of Siobhan’s laundry detergent following her as she drifts off to sleep.

* * *

She lies to Felix and Mrs. S, tells them she doesn’t know who the father is but gives random names as possibilities. Fee insists on hunting them down for child support, but Mrs. S only looks at her with that expression Sarah remembers so well from childhood, the ones that says, “I know you’re lying but I’m not going to argue.”

A few times Sarah considers calling Cal, apologizing, telling him about the baby. On the nights when she’s emotional and lonely, she even picks up the phone. But then she remembers she’s a thief and Cal likely hates her, so she puts it down and promises the baby she’s going to be a better person from now on.

* * *

It feels like she’s being ripped apart, and Sarah screams. Felix looks horrified, urging anyone who looks remotely medical to give her drugs, but Mrs. S mops her brow with a damp washcloth and clucks, “There, there, love, it’ll be over soon.”

“I can’t do it,” Sarah weeps, wanting to vomit from the pain. “Please, Siobhan, tell them – “

“You can do this,” she cuts in, sliding an ice chip across Sarah’s chapped lips. “You’re a fighter, Sarah. You’ve got more fight in you than anyone I’ve ever met. Fight for your baby, love. Bring her home.”

She shrieks and she pushes, and then suddenly there is a rush of relief as her child slips free. At first there is no sound from the baby and panic has just started to rise in Sarah when the baby gives a little shout, kicking its legs, and Sarah and Felix both start to weep while Mrs. S brushes a kiss against her forehead.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor announces as the nurse hands over the swaddled newborn, and Sarah feels a rush of love so fierce as she looks at her daughter, she thinks she may drown in it.

“Hello, monkey,” she manages between tears, stroking the soft apple of her daughter’s cheek.

When it comes time to fill out the birth certificate, Sarah looks at the blank spaces for a long time before she finally scribbles in the requested information. 

Kira Fiona Manning, daughter of Sarah Manning and unknown.

She is twenty-one-years-old.

* * *

She isn’t good at it, being a mum. She tries to be, she tries so damned _hard_ but she isn’t good at it. When Kira cries, Sarah can never quite manage to calm her down, not the way Siobhan or even Felix can.

“You’ve got to relax, love,” Mrs. S advises one evening as Kira takes the bottle she refused to take from Sarah for the past hour. “Babies can smell fear.”

“That’s dogs,” Sarah snaps, shoving the canister of formula back into the cupboard.

She gets her equivalency diploma at Siobhan’s insistence and takes a job as a shop clerk. The pay is shit and the work, tedious, but Mrs. S agrees to keep Kira while she works. Sarah starts to feel like a teenager again, like she has to clear every single thing she wants with Mrs. S, like her very existence relies on her, and if there is one thing Sarah excels at, it’s misplaced anger.

The woman at the assistance office gets her a voucher for rent assistance, for food assistance, even for daycare assistance. Sarah moves into a shitty one-bedroom not far from Felix’s loft, bringing Kira and her lingering inadequacies with her.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mrs. S tells her as she shoves her things into a duffel, Felix keeping Kira company downstairs.

“Kira is _my_ daughter, not yours!”

“I never tried to make her mine, love.”

“You’re a liar.” Sarah swings her bag over her shoulder, pushes her hair out of her eyes. “You’re not Kira’s mum and you’re not mine either, so get out of my bloody way!”

Mrs. S shakes her head, literally throwing up her hands. She goes into her bedroom, closes the door, and Sarah thinks she’s finally burned this bridge once and for all.

She is twenty-four; Kira is three.

* * *

The only bright spot of her days is coming home to Kira, who always runs to her for hugs and kisses, showing her the pictures she drew at daycare or at Felix’s house. Her blonde curls are always unruly no matter how Sarah wrestled them into submission earlier in the day, and her eyes, _Cal’s_ eyes, are always bright with love and acceptance.

“Mommy, how much do you love me?” Kira asks one night as Sarah bathes her in their rusting tub.

“More than anyone or anything, monkey.”

“Even more than Uncle Felix?”

“Even more than Uncle Felix,” she confirms, wrapping her up in a towel. 

“Does my daddy love me that much?”

Sarah pauses before nodding, smiling falsely. “He loves you to the moon and back.”

At work the next day she types Cal’s name into Google, wondering if anything new will come back this time. Beyond a few old news articles, nothing is returned.

Sarah vows to stop thinking about Cal.

* * *

Vic comes in one afternoon when Sarah is at the end of a double shift. He flirts with her, asks her what she’d like in the store, and it’s been so long since she indulged in anything for her own enjoyment, she agrees to go for a drink with him. She calls Fee, asks him to keep Kira a bit longer, and pretends she doesn’t hear the irritation in his voice.

When he brings out the coke, asking if she wants a bump, Sarah hesitates. It’s been years since she’s used, not since Kira was born, but it seems like the only possible escape from the dreariness of her life now. She inhales quickly, the burning in her nasal passages making her eyes water, and pretends like she isn’t making a horrible decision.

* * *

She gets fired a month after meeting Vic, a month of slacking off and showing up late and even lifting a few bills from the till. Sarah curses out her manager, knocks over a display, and goes to Vic’s where she proceeds to get high and forget to pick up Kira from daycare.

When she finally checks her phone to find a dozen angry messages from Felix waiting, Sarah knows she’s fucked up, knows she needs to get it together.

She just isn’t sure she’s capable of it.

* * *

“I think the cops are after me,” Vic tells her one afternoon as Sarah checks the cupboards of her apartment, realizes she’s forgotten to grocery shop and there is nothing to make Kira for dinner. “I’m going out of town for awhile.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know, till the heat dies down. You should come with me.”

“I can’t go with you. I have Kira.”

“Can’t Felix take care of her? I mean, it’s not like you’re mother of the year or anything.”

She chucks a near empty jar of peanut butter at him. “Fuck you!”

Vic dodges it easily with a laugh, holding up his hands. “Hey, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a vial of coke. “You want?”

Sarah knows she should say no, but she feels the itch beneath her skin telling her to take it, to take the release, to escape her problems with a quick snort. She takes the vial, inhales, and after a minute says, “I can’t leave her with Fee.”

* * *

Siobhan opens the front door before Sarah and Kira even have time to ring the bell, Kira embracing her tightly and asking if they can make cookies. Mrs. S eyes Sarah warily, and Sarah knows what she looks like. She pulls her coat tighter around her body and manages, “Thanks for this.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” is all Mrs. S says, disappearing into the kitchen.

Sarah kisses Kira’s head, says, “Be good for Mrs. S, monkey. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mommy!”

Sarah cries all the way to the train.

* * *

Vic blackens her eyes, splits her lip, bruises her ribs, and still she stays. They fight, she claws his face, she hits him with a frying pan, but still she stays. This is what she deserves, Sarah rationalizes between drunken fights and coked out screaming matches, for doing to Kira what her birth mum did to her.

She calls Siobhan’s house one night when she’s high as a kite and so full of self-loathing she could choke. Mrs. S answers and her familiar Irish lilt makes Sarah slam down the phone, scream in frustration. She digs in her purse for her photo of Kira, and she decides then and there she’s going to straighten up, be who she needs to be for Kira.

The withdrawal is the worst part, carefully hidden from Vic so as not to raise questions. She starts pocketing loose cash, hiding it in her box of tampons, and when Vic comes home with a huge package of coke, Sarah knows she’s found her way out.

Sarah tucks it into her bag, walks to the nearest train station, and buys a ticket home.

She hopes she can make up for the lost year of her life, can show Kira how much she really does love her.

* * *

On the train she dreams of chasing Kira through the yard at Cal’s cabin, Cal sitting on the steps with a steaming cup of coffee. Felix is there and Mrs. S too, and in the shadows there is someone Sarah can’t quite make out but she knows is her real mother.

It is a sweet dream, the sort she’d never even dare to dream while awake, and Sarah resents when she is jolted awake by the stopping of the train.

Sarah climbs out onto the platform and vows that this time she is going to do things differently. This time she will be the woman Mrs. S wanted her to be, the woman Cal wanted her to be, the woman Kira should have as a mother.

Out of the corner of her eye Sarah sees a woman standing on the platform and she thinks her eyes must be playing tricks because the woman looks just like her.

Sarah gasps as the woman throws herself in front of an oncoming train, and as she grabs the woman’s bag and takes off, Sarah knows her life has changed all over again.

She is twenty-nine-years-old.


End file.
